


Willow Trees

by ThatGirlWhoTries



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean kind of tags along, Destiel - Freeform, Destiel Real Life AU, I'm not entirely sure where this is going, M/M, My First Destiel Fanfic, Past Relationships, Slow Burn, destiel au, free spirit Castiel, real life AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-03 10:57:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4098445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatGirlWhoTries/pseuds/ThatGirlWhoTries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Cas grew up together, your typical sticky-fingered, next-door-neighbor friendship that matured slowly as they did. After they both walked the stage at their high school gymnasium, Castiel, desperate to escape his strict upbringing, decided to run away from home, pursuing his art wherever his heart desired. He convinced Dean to come with him.<br/>That was ten years ago.<br/>Six years ago, Dean made one of the worst decisions in his life.<br/>Last Thursday, Castiel showed back up in their dilapidated town, blind-siding Dean with the four years he has tried so desperately to forget, but can't help but remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Last Thursday

The next time Dean sees him, it has been six years.

  
    He is running, footsteps loud in the early morning, his hands tucked close to his sides as he hums to _Led Zepplin_ between deep and easy breaths. The route is familiar, carved into his memory like a promise: always boring, always consistent, always there. He knows this route, knows the way the dawning sunlight trickles over faded mailboxes and uneven driveways, knows the sounds of his neighbors’ dogs and children and TV sets. He knows not to look up when he passes 211 West Rook St. at the brooding house, still vacant, overgrowing slowly with weeds as though the world is conspiring to wipe away its existence, bitter and cold. Dean appreciates the universe for the way it makes sad places fade, even if the memory doesn’t. So, he runs past it, every morning, and he doesn’t look up, doesn’t tiptoe where he shouldn’t – doesn’t noticed the hunched figure sitting on the front step, shoulders curved into an impossible question mark, blue eyes startling as Dean runs past.

  
“Hello, Dean.”

  
    He freezes, almost falls, his feet stuttering to a halt. He feels his face still into shock, his breath hitching in the shelves of his throat where he’s stored stupid words – words like _Cas_ , and, _I love you_ , and, _stay_. When he turns, it is on a pinwheel, on a jagged jewelry box with broken gears, jerking motions like the way his heartbeat trips when he sees him.

  
    And then he is hovering on the edge of pale pink lips and haggard azure gaze. He is candlelight in the window to signal times for the next meet up. He is crafted out of cracks, a collection of sensations in late night bedrooms; a thousand paper clips are all that keep him in place.

  
    Castiel stands, all at once, his palms limp and empty at his sides, fingers twitching as he seems to debate whether or not to take a step forward. Motion wins out – with him, it always does.

  
“Dean.”

  
    A thousand ways to say his name and he’s said them all – except this one. This cold, flat one, this void-of-promise one, this…stranger in his Cas’s clothes.

  
“Castiel.”

  
    He is the feel of whispers against shadowed hair, laughter choking in the throat and a heartbeat in the ears. He is earth, the warmth beneath the stinging blades of wind and grass, ever so welcoming – and he is welcoming. He is beautiful, but different. The years have sanded down the edges of him, left him misshapen and crooked. This Castiel would smile differently, would laugh with rust in his voice. Dean can see it, now, even as his mouth stays grim and practical. He wonders how much _he_ has changed in these million eternities. How he’s grown. How he’s grown smaller.

  
They both say, “How are you?”

  
    They both lie. Dean can see it in his eyes, the way he hides the pain from all the time apart. They both pretend. They used to pour their hearts out but now they can’t, a secret language lost to them. The space between them is too large. Even now, with nothing but six feet of gray asphalt and grayer morning, it swirls with the eddies of their broken promises.

  
They both say, “Fine.”

  
    Because that is what you say when a stranger asks you, and they are little more than knowledgeable strangers. He knows the freckles of Dean’s back. Dean knows the mole beneath his knee. The secrets between the ages of ten and twenty-three. But that is all.

  
    Dean takes a deep breath and nods at him. It makes the corners of his mouth twist into a wry smile, remembering the way he used to work to keep Cas from being too formal, the hours devoted to oiling his tightly wound spine. Castiel smiles, too, but it is sad. He is sad. That is what is so different. He is sad and gray just like the overcast sky. And how fitting that it should threaten rain – the universe remains poetically on his side.

  
    They used to be puzzle pieces. Now they are two different things. Two different corners of separate scenes.

  
    Dean walks away. The steps are longer than in dreams. He wishes he could skip like the movies to the weather-worn steps of his own house, but each second must be felt in case of a plot twist. The only twist is that it begins to rain. And that wasn’t so unexpected.


	2. Ten Years Ago

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean suddenly feels like he’s not breathing, like this moment is too heavy for his chest to carry. He senses something significant. And maybe it’s the fact that they just graduated, and maybe it’s delirium from the hour, and maybe it’s the beer Bobby handed to him with a good-natured wink and a shrug – but it’s mostly the way Castiel looks, like he’s been through hell, like someone’s clipped his wings. He keeps shuddering, heaving for breaths, and his eyes are so tightly closed Dean is worried that he might be hurting himself. He considers for a second that Castiel may be crying, but it’s such a terrifying thought that he shoves it out of his mind immediately.
> 
> When Castiel looks up, his eyes are clear, but his attempted smile seems a little watery. “Dean, run away with me.”
> 
> “…What?”
> 
>  
> 
> In which they graduate, and Dean finds he has a few more choices to make than his summer job.

Graduation is hot. Castiel didn’t think it would be, inside the wide gymnasium, but he supposes he should have expected it: it’s not like any of the obligatory morning assemblies were exactly frigid, and those with a fraction of the crowd gathered to watch them graduate. He sighs and shifts in his seat, wishing once again that his watch was not against the graduation dress code. How long have they been in here?

 

Long enough for his gown to plaster itself uncomfortably to his back like a second, burgundy-stained skin, and they’re only on the _T’s._ He doesn’t want the teacher on the end of his row to get onto him again, but he spares a quick glance over his shoulder.

 

Dean catches his gaze and smirks at him, eyes sparking from his last row in the very back of the floor. _It’s hot_ , Castiel mouths, a frown forming in furrows on his brow.

 

Dean just shrugs, mouth quirking. _You’re hot_ , he mouths back, grin wide and laughing around the words. Castiel rolls his eyes, but honestly, he should have expected that, too.

 

“Novak!” an angry voice hisses, a train whistle over all of the outside noise. “ _Turn around._ ”

 

Castiel catches his glare just before he throws it, like a poison arrow on the tip of his tongue, turning back to watch the processional of his peers that he never quite knew. He’s sure the sea of sweat on his palms is going to rub away the ink of his faux-leather diploma frame, but he doesn’t trust himself to remember it if he places it on the floor beside his feet. They’ve made it to the _V’s_ now, the stutter-step of every senior in the spaces before their names are called, the sympathetic wince when there’s the inevitable mispronunciation, syllables falling like butcher paper from mouths that forgot to practice the list and can’t be bothered to read the phonetic guides. It’s fitting, Castiel supposes, that most of the last moments of high school are a final reminder that no one here really knows you.

 

Castiel blinks back to reality when the first of the _W’s_ are called, instantly on the edge of his seat as he scans the mulling line for Dean. There he is, face expectant, cap cocked to the side in a way Castiel knows his mother would kill him for, his shoulders a stark outline beneath the folds of his robe. Castiel smiles, wide and unabashed, as Dean meanders up the stairs, pretending to be confident and unaffected by the pressure of hundreds of eyes turned to him – but Castiel can see the slight bend to his brow, the tense outline of his fists at his sides, the way Dean forces them to unravel.

 

And then Dean’s name is being called, and Castiel is cheering, rules of silence fallen to the wayside as Dean pauses for the corny picture with his diploma and waves at the crowd where Sam and Bobby are whooping like drunken rednecks at a rodeo. Everyone is smiling so much it hurts, and Castiel feels full of some light like he swallowed the night sky and can’t contain the glow. He thinks he may cry.

 

But then the moment is over, and the announcer moves on, and the teacher to Castiel’s right is still hissing at him in a shrill voice to remind him not to “make a fuss” because they _practiced_ this, this stifled silence, this nonchalance about best friends and endings and diplomas. Castiel was fine with it, really, up until Dean – Dean is the only one who mattered, and he was going to cheer for him if he wanted to, was going to scream from rooftops and across the sea of red flat hats with crooked tassels.

 

The last person is going, now, shuffling across the stage to the chorus of dozens of students screaming and clapping and already out of their seats like a wave in the crowd, an energized buzz bouncing from row to row to row because they are almost through, officially, forever. And then someone Castiel doesn’t know is at the podium, smiling, saying something he doesn’t quite catch over the thunderstorm suddenly erupted around him like plane turbulence. But then everyone’s hands are lifting, grasping onto limp tassels, all broad smiles and relief that the world hasn’t ended before this moment, this hushed pause as they all move their threads to the left and cheer again and fling the things towards the flickering lights in the arch of the gymnasium. And then, they are graduates.

 

Castiel picks up a hat nearest to him, not caring if it is actually his or not, just knowing his mother will want pictures to throw about at family gatherings like she had actually cared to see him walk the stage. For a moment, he stares at it in his hand, feels the heavy dampness of it after hours of sweat, hefts its awkward weight as the tassel shifts towards the floor. He suddenly wants none of it – not the hat, not the pictures, not a tassel to hang on his rear view mirror like a symbolic memorandum of the past, of looking back. He wants none of this, not even the slip of paper fallen to the floor that declares him officially free to the world, free to pursue whatever lesson comes next. His robe suddenly feels suffocating, choking him, reducing his lungs to lumps of ruined flesh as they forget what it is like to breathe. He fumbles for the zipper, fingers still loosely gripping the hat and making it hard to find the thing. There it is. He yanks it down. It catches. He is never getting out of this. He is going to die in this awful robe that makes everyone look like balloons and he is never going to get out of –

 

“Whoa there, Cas, I’ve never seen you in such a hurry to get undressed in a public place. Have an exhibitionist kink you never told me about?” Dean’s warm, calloused hands close around his wrists, tugging them carefully away from the tangle of metal teeth that have already bit into one knuckle. “This flap thing is caught in the zipper. There. Now you can get naked.” Dean looks up to share a private smile at his joke, but Castiel must look too much like he is drowning for him to follow through. “Cas? You okay?”

 

Castiel starts to answer, _wants_ to answer, wants to explain this rush of adrenaline that had made his hands shake too badly to _pull down_ , but Dean has already stiffened, looking over his shoulder. “Dean, wh -?”

 

“Castiel.” Castiel tenses, turns, a smile pressed to his face the way the back of his robe is. His mother holds out her arms, expectant, lines drawn so starkly around her eyes it is a wonder she is even real. She hugs him, embraces him, bathes him in a wall of perfume that makes it even harder to breathe as she clucks in disapproval and tugs back up the zipper on his robe, all the way to his neck where it digs into the hollow of his throat. “Congratulations,” she manages, face inches from his.

 

Castiel smiles, also tight: they are a 2D family, stark contrast, black and white and never gray. He has never felt more exhausted in his life than when something in her eyes click at the way his breath hitches when she hooks the tiny button at the opening of his robe. “Dean,” she says, without looking up, never looking up at Castiel’s only friend, at the boy she still deems dirty from her first introduction eight years ago, “would you mind taking our picture?”

 

“Sure thing, Mrs. Novak,” Dean says, stepping forward to take her offered phone. The cap Castiel had grabbed is too small, pressing tight against his skull like a vise, like some torture device he’s been placed on to atone for his sins. The way his mother grips him close confirms his feelings. They smile, or at least, he thinks he does, back straight, arm loose around his mother’s waist, gaze cool and unaffected by the lack of oxygen to his brain. His mother doesn’t believe in panic attacks. Weakness, she calls them. Pathetic.

 

“I’ll see you at home?” she asks Castiel, one eyebrow curving oh so elegantly up, as if afraid to threaten wrinkles to her perfect face. She pats his cheek instead of allowing him to answer, as if there is any other response than _Yes, mother._ “Don’t stay out too late,” as if there is any other time besides curfew. “I love you, too” as if there is any other answer than _I don’t._

When he looks back, Dean has a hand on the back of his neck, gaze focused solely on the floor as he rubs red into the stretch of tanned skin there. “Well, I was going to ask you to come out to dinner with us, but –”

 

Castiel sighs, shoulders slumping in response to the sudden gravity soldered to his spine. “But, my mother is insane. Yes, I know.” He bends slowly to pick up his diploma where it rests on the cracked gym floor. “See you tonight, then?”

 

Dean is grinning when he looks up again, hands back at his sides, palms open to him as though offering his both condolences and his excitement. “I thought you’d never ask.” Castiel rolls his eyes even as he smiles, because of course he’d ask. He’s asked every weekend for eight years, and this one is all the more important.

 

He turns to go, glancing at his naked wrist and frowning, when Dean tugs him back, hand hot on Castiel’s shoulder. “Wait, Cas.” For a moment, there is a collective breath, an acknowledged space between them hung heavy with all the words they never say. He gets lost for a moment in the emerald fire of Dean’s eyes, the curve of them as he keeps smiling – but then Dean is shuffling back a step, clearing his throat, gaze dropping down to Castiel’s constrained neck. He tugs the button open, unzips it to midway down Castiel’s chest. “There. Can’t have you passing out on me.”

 

Castiel laughs, a soft sound practically lost in the conversations towards the doors where everyone’s filing out. “We can’t, can we. Then I may never get out of here.”

 

“At the rate this crowd’s going, you may never get out of here anyway.” Dean laughs back, just as quiet, hands still curled around the edges of Castiel’s robe, falling now as he comes back into himself. “Right, well. I guess I should…”

 

“Yeah, me too.”

 

Dean starts to pull away, but then he shakes his head and yanks Castiel in for a familiar hug. “Hey, we’re officially graduates,” he mutters into the air beside Castiel’s ear.

 

Castiel feels that glow again. “We are.” It’s grand, this feeling, this buzzing in his veins, this warmth of Dean’s arms wrapped around him like the safe place he’s turned to since he was ten. For a moment, he thinks Dean feels it too, this golden thread winding its way around them like a shooting star streaks across the sky, like pressing constellations into the freckles of Dean’s face, connecting the dots the way Castiel did, once. Dean pulls back, but his arms remain loosely around Castiel for a suspended moment. Castiel thinks Dean may be remembering, too – may be lost for just a breath or two in the shadowed corner of Dean’s bedroom, the way the sunrise had played across their skin.

 

But then Dean really is letting him go, smile open, eyes free of anything significant beyond _officially graduates_. Castiel feels his heart stutter for a moment, go flat line just long enough for him to wonder what the afterlife is like. “So, tonight?” Dean confirms, eyebrows raised, hands up like a mirror to his inflection.

 

Castiel nods, smiles, and watches Dean go, watches until he blends in with the other red robes, his laughter ringing through the gym rafters. Even when he yanks off the hat and the robe, he still feels like he’s had the air knocked out of him, like he has a punctured lung, or no lungs at all.

 

He supposes he should have expected this, too.

 

* * *

 

Dean gets home late, the night quiet and warm and the sticky sort of silence accompanied with the thrill of knowing you’re the only one awake. The sound of his baby’s door closing echoes throughout the neighborhood like a clap of thunder, making him smile, small and to himself, as he heads up the porch steps. Just before he slips inside he glances up, across the folding chain-link fence that sings during storms and sizzles during summer days, the little gate undone but closed, as usual, up towards the tiny window on the second floor, the one with the faint outline of a stack of impressive books and a single candle on the windowsill. One o’clock it is, then.

 

When he glances down at his watch, however, he mutters a curse. Castiel is always early, never on time, so he’s probably already –

 

_“Dean!”_

 

Dean jumps as he turns up, towards his own window, where Castiel is perched precariously on the alcove and glaring down at him. “Cas, what the hell, man, I have like, ten minutes until one.”

 

Castiel’s eyes narrow; Dean can see it even in the near darkness. “Does it look like I care? Just get your assbutt up here and _open this damn window_.”

 

Dean stifles a laugh in the shoulder of his jacket as he hurries up to the front door, closing it behind him with a faint click and taking the stairs inside two at a time. Castiel shoots daggers at him as he crosses his room to the window. “If you’d be on time, this wouldn’t be a problem,” he mutters as he works the window up.

 

“If you weren’t out past midnight this wouldn’t be a problem either.”

 

“Who am I, Cinderella? Midnight is not the end-all of a night out, Castiel. It’s not even remotely late.” He pulls a face as Castiel slips past him into the room. “Maybe it is to _your_ parents, but –“

 

“Yes, yes, we all get it, my mother is super strict for god knows what reason.”

 

“Cas, I didn’t mean –“

 

“Dean. It’s fine.” Castiel rakes a hand over his face, shivering in the moonlight until Dean shuts the window even though the night air is too muggy to be the cause of his tremblings. He looks…awful, like he didn’t just graduate, like he graduated a hundred years ago and is still trapped in the same boxes. He doesn’t look at Dean, his frame hunched and tensed defensively. “That’s…actually what I wanted to talk to you about.”

 

Dean suddenly feels like he’s not breathing, like this moment is too heavy for his chest to carry. He senses something significant. And maybe it’s the fact that they just graduated, and maybe it’s delirium from the hour, and maybe it’s the beer Bobby handed to him with a good-natured wink and a shrug – but it’s mostly the way Castiel looks, like he’s been through hell, like someone’s clipped his wings. He keeps _shuddering_ , heaving for breaths, and his eyes are so tightly closed Dean is worried that he might be hurting himself. He considers for a second that Castiel may be crying, but it’s such a terrifying thought that he shoves it out of his mind immediately.

 

When Castiel looks up, his eyes are clear, but his attempted smile seems a little watery. “Dean, run away with me.”

 

“…What?”

 

“I got home after graduation, and my mother shoved _this_ into my hands.” Castiel drips acid into his tone, throwing down a brightly-colored pamphlet that boasts of _The Most Prestigious Christian Prep School._ “That’s where I’m going next year.”

 

Dean picks up the paper from the mauve carpet at his feet, flipping through it with a frown. “Cas, this is a…like, a monastery. I thought you wanted to pursue your art-“

 

“I _do_! She said I have no _choice._ I can’t do it, Dean. I can’t give up my dreams for her. That would be…” He sits down on the bed, hand over his mouth, a tired laugh falling colorless from behind his fingers. “That would be truly masochistic.” He stares off into space for the span of a few more heartbeats, before his gaze drags up to Dean and he seems to collect himself again. He stands, a full, fluid motion, like a deep breath or a cool drink of water after he’s dragged Dean on one of those awful runs of his. “So, Dean…run away with me.”

 

He finds himself sputtering. “Run – run _away_ with you? What the hell, Cas? Where would we even go?”

 

Castiel shrugs, a deep, unruffled motion that moves all of him. “I’m not entirely sure. New York? Oregon? California?”

 

“California? Cas, are you _insane?_ We’re about the furthest from California as we can get. You want to go trekking across country on some whim with no idea where we’re going just so you can – “  


“Dean.” Castiel reaches for him, palm up, _shaking_. The shaking is what catches Dean’s notice, what makes him pause mid-pace, eyes wide and furious. “Please.”

 

Dean wants to say no. Wants to demand he explain himself. Wants to fling statistics and questions at him and tell him exactly why this doesn’t work, why they can’t just _run away_ – but then he considers it: the open road, just him and Cas and his car, the world free and unmarked by the soles of their shoes. He remembers mountain ranges and farm lands from his childhood, the way he’d watched, enraptured, at the sun glint off of snow and snowy wheat alike. He imagines the dragging pull of the ocean, the cleansing of it, all lost to him.

 

Until now.

 

It’s crazy, of course it is. It’s foolish and impractical to go running – to _run away_ with _Cas_ – and to have no real destination in mind. Just a whim. Just an impulse. Just…a need. Cas needs him.

 

He wants to say no, tries to say no – but he finds himself, instead, reaching for Castiel’s outstretched hand, clasping it like a lifeline. He thinks, in some ways, for Cas at least, it is. A lifeline. A way out of here. Just for the summer. Just until they dig their feet into California shores.

 

Castiel smiles, wide, pulling him close, crushing them together until he cant't really tell whose heart is racing more. “Thank you, Dean.”

 

“This is crazy, Cas.” Dean mutters, holding back just as tightly. “ _You’re_ crazy.”

 

Castiel just smiles into the darkness of Dean’s bedroom, eyes focused on the square of faded carpet, the corner where the light would dance if it was sunrise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your encouragement! I honestly never thought anyone would even notice this. I'm off for summer break, so expect updates semi-weekly? That's what I'm going for anyways.
> 
>  
> 
> gods, it feels good to write again.
> 
> (Also, I am un-beta'd, so, if you see any mistakes or have any questions, let me know! My tumblr is noelknd, too, if you'd rather contact me that way.)


	3. On the Road Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel stares straight ahead, sitting up so rigidly that his back peels off the seat. “We’ll make it.”
> 
> “Cas, it’s a nice dream, but –“
> 
> “We’ll make it, Dean.”
> 
> Or, in which Castiel and Dean have their first sort-of argument on their way to the Pacific.

   Dean sighs, raking his fingers through his hair as he watches the numbers on the price line of the gas tank climb ever upwards. He feels grimy, legs cramping after weeks on the road. He needs a shower and a bed and to not have to share the music time with Cas so much. He was getting sick of the indie-classical stuff.

 

            He frowns when he has to click the meter off. It wasn’t going to get them far, but they can’t afford any more. He barely stops himself from kicking his baby’s wheel. He hates this part, has _always_ hated this part. The lack of money is like a coil in his stomach, making him always tense, always sick with what he’s going to do next, how he is going to get them something to eat, somewhere to sleep that isn’t the heated leather of his Impala.

 

            Castiel isn’t like that at all. Even now, he is coming towards Dean, arms full of rest-stop food, smile bright against the late afternoon sun and gummy beneath his aviator sunglasses. He tosses Dean one of the packages; its wrapper crinkles like static in his hands when he catches it. Dean slides into the driver’s seat before he looks down – then he laughs. “Pie?”

 

            Castiel doesn’t look up from his burger, voice muffled around a mouthful of it. “I seem to recall that you can’t live without them.” He snorts as he swallows, then turns back to Dean. “Remember that time Ellen caught us sneaking pie out of your refrigerator?”

 

            Dean tosses his head back as a laugh rumbles through him. “Yeah! Man. She threatened to tan our hides. I was never so scared to step foot in the kitchen.” He shakes his head as he slides the package open, the pastry too sweet and just crumbly enough against his tongue to combat all of the nostalgia. “It pro’bly took me a year before I could go in there without her.” He fists the empty wrapper, tossing it in the backseat despite the glare Castiel shoots him, and sighing as he starts the car and pulls out of the potholed parking lot. “Love me some pie,” he mutters, mostly to himself, and mostly to keep himself from finally asking, “Where to, Cas?”

 

            Castiel’s brow furrows as he adds his own trash to the backseat, wincing as he does so. “Aren’t we still just heading West?”

 

            Dean’s knuckles whiten around the steering wheel and he accelerates for a blinding moment before he slowly pulls off. “Well, theoretically.”

 

            “Theoretically?”

 

            He sighs, heavy and trembling. “We have no money, Cas. We can make it to the next town over, but that’s as far as we’ve got, and them I’m not sure _what_ we’re gonna do. I mean, I could hustle some pool-“ Dean’s jaw flexes, a flinch escaping down his spine before he can repress it. The thought reminds him too much of his father, and it makes the coil in his stomach grow eyes and a forked tongue, hissing with venom between his lungs. “-or something,” he continues. “But we certainly aren’t going to make it to California any time soon.”

 

            Castiel stares straight ahead, sitting up so rigidly that his back peels off the seat. “We’ll make it.”

 

            “Cas, it’s a nice dream, but –“

 

            “We’ll _make it,_ Dean.”

 

            Dean grinds his teeth, gaze focused on the tiny red arrow on his dashboard much too close to _Empty_ for this argument. “Cas-“

 

            “I stole some money,” Castiel interrupts. When Dean doesn’t reply beyond throwing him a wild look, he continues, still looking forward. “From my parents. Money and some of my mother’s jewelry, so we can pawn it off whenever. It was from the jewelry box in the guest room. I doubt she’ll even notice it’s gone, much less _care._ ”

 

            “And the _money_ , Cas?” Dean feels how hard his voice sounds, ripping from his throat with jagged edges. This is all too familiar. This adrenaline rush on borrowed time, this thrumming through his veins of _wrong wrong wrong._ Stealing was never his favorite. Sometimes, god help him, it was necessary – _steal or starve_. But this, this isn’t –

 

            “Look, I know it’s wrong, Dean. But I couldn’t…I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t _stay_ there anymore.” Castiel looks down as his hands, hanging his head. His voice is too soft. It wrecks him. “It’s just…It’s enough to get us to California.”

 

An uncomfortable silence descends in the cab of the Impala, sticky and stuffy and making Dean’s shoulders tense. The coil in his stomach has grown, now, reared up, ready to strike. He swallows around the threat of it, tight and tense all over.

 

When Castiel looks up, it is with apology clear in his face. Apology and a small, wry smile. “It would have been _more_ than enough, if you hadn’t insisted on lugging this metal monster the whole way.”

 

Dean whips his head around so fast he’s afraid he might have sprained something. “Hey! No badmouthing the baby!” Leaning forward, he drags his hand down the sun-warmed dash in a lopsided sort of caress. “Don’t listen to him, baby, he didn’t mean it.”

 

“I most certainly did.”

 

“Hey, you want to _walk_ to California?” Castiel pulls a face and reaches for the radio dial, but Dean slaps his hand away. “You know the rules. Driver picks the-”

 

“God help me, Dean, if you say that line one more time, I am going to throw up all over you.”

 

Dean grimaces. “Please don’t.” The silence returns, slips in with the dusty air conditioning – but it isn’t as congealing, this time, doesn’t settle so much, especially when Dean casts a shy glance Castiel’s way and says, “Does this mean we can afford a room tonight?”

 

Castiel’s smile is small, but definite. “Yes, Dean. Yes, it does.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the wait, guys!  
> Once again, all errors are mine, and don't be afraid to let me know what you think. 
> 
> All feedback is more than appreciated, as I'm kind of strikingly new to the whole writing-a-fanfiction thing. I'm also happy to answer all questions or suggestions you have for me.  
> Thank you so very much for reading!
> 
>  
> 
> (P.S. I know this chapter is kind of short, but the next one is sort of important, so stay tuned)


	4. Just Like Old Times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel sucks in a shuddering breath like it’s impossible, like he’s forgotten how his lungs work, like he has to fight for it. His trembling fists close around Dean’s shirt, probably stretching it out. Dean doesn't care. He has other shirts.
> 
> Or, in which things hit Dean a little too close for comfort.

            Dean is stretched out on his stiff motel bed, not even bothered to take off his shoes, his hands folded behind his head as he traces patterns into the ceiling. The room is dimly lit, and every time a car rambles by, its headlights sweep through the place, making everything cinematically strange for just a few moments. It smells stale but antiseptic, the clean indifference of spaces shared by hundreds of people and loved by no one. It reminds Dean of _home_ , and that thought has him sitting up to shake it off, chewing on his bottom lip and running his hands through his hair. “Hey, Cas, you almost done in there?”

 

            Castiel’s shower had gone off a while ago, but he had yet to reappear. The sink is running steadily, so Dean assumes he must be brushing his teeth and washing his face – he is so meticulous about hygiene, after all, always has been, at least from the time they were ten to now. Dean is pretty sure that’s why his hair is always such an unruly mess – less products meant less cleanup, later, but more bedhead, now. He smiles as he stands and stretches, a rhythm popping up his spine in delicious percussion. “Cas, c’mon, you’re gonna drain the whole state.”

 

            There is no response from the other side of the thin, plywood door, and Dean feels his brow furrow, his stomach twist. “Cas? Cas, buddy, you okay?” He takes tentative steps across the gaudy carpet, feet heavy above the uneven floorboards beneath them, and knocks gently on the bathroom door, leaning against it and staring into its off-white as though that way he can see what Castiel is doing. “Say something, man,” he says, soft against the steady stream of running water. “You’re killing me here.”

 

            Dean shuffles his feet, taking a step back from the door, gaze going wildly about the room as though he could draw some solution from the tacky wall art or the bizarre 70’s style patterns of the useless curtains that do nothing to halt another array of passing headlights. The silence stretches and he with it, thin, thinner, until he snaps. “Look, Cas, cover up or whatever, but I’m coming in.” He tries the handle. It’s locked, but he is better than that: he shimmies at it until it slides loose. Bathroom locks in motels are always subpar; that was a lesson he’d learned the hard way, on multiple occasions. “You better be decent-“

 

            Castiel is hunched over the sink, wracked and shuddering with sobs that shake his shoulders like earthquake tremors, like the threat of an inevitable collapse, like cracks appearing in foundations that were meant to last forever. Broken, choked noises, masked before by the water and the wood, hit Dean like pinpricks, like bullet wounds, like they did every time they were ripped from Sam’s lips in stale rooms just like this. For a moment, he can’t move, lost in watching the catastrophe unfold before him. Castiel, _Cas_ , his stoic, unfazed Cas, crying so hard he isn’t sure he’s breathing. His knuckles are stark white against the tacky blue countertop, but even that grip seems to be failing him. He is falling apart.

 

            Dean has him in his arms before he fully registers what he is doing, has his damp and heaving face tucked into the hollows of his shoulder, dripping wetness from his hair and eyes and the front of his pajamas plastered to him. Dean doesn’t mind. He just shuts the water off and holds Castiel for a while, one hand on his back, one carding through his damp hair, shushing him, voice a soft but persistent force against the arsenal of a storm locked in Castiel’s chest. “Sh, Cas, sh. I’m here. I got you.”

 

“They d-don’t care,” Castiel mutters into Dean’s collarbone, voice hitching and hiccupping and only making him cry harder. “Th-th-they d-don’t-“

 

“Breathe, Cas.”

 

Castiel sucks in a shuddering breath like it’s impossible, like he’s forgotten how his lungs work, like he has to fight for it. His trembling fists close around Dean’s shirt, probably stretching it out. Dean doesn't care. He has other shirts. “After g-graduation. I tried to talk to them D-d-dean, but they wouldn’t…they wouldn’t list-t-ten.”

 

He threatens to break down again, so Dean holds him tighter, mumbling a firm, “ _Breathe_ ,” into his hair.

 

Castiel does, breathing heavy for a long moment, before he draws in on himself to continue. “My _father_ -“ the word is acid against Dean’s skin, crawling with the toxicity in Castiel’s hiss, the way he spits it out into the cotton fabric still held close to his face. “He didn’t even come to see me graduate, Dean. He said he knew – knew I was going to be a, a – a _disappointment.”_ The fists tighten, draw Dean closer, although Castiel’s eyes remain focused-but-not-focused on the base of Dean’s throat. “He knew I didn’t want to go where he wanted me to go, didn’t want to _be_ what he wanted me to _be._ So he didn’t even come. He just. He just sat at home and waited for me to walk through those doors so he could tell me we weren’t going to discuss it anymore. But-but-“

 

            Castiel draws back, pulls back enough to look Dean in his eyes. It almost kills him, because they are so bright, so broken, the blue washed and wetted by the saltwater seas still hovering in the corners of his eyes. For a moment, neither of them say anything. Dean gets the sense that this is an important moment, one of the kinds that brands itself to your soul and gets stuck there, one of the moments you mention when you really know someone, when you want to tell them a secret about yourself that is not so much a secret as a part of you, a memory that winds its way into your veins and mingles with your heartbeats.

 

            But then Castiel’s releasing him, smoothing his hands down the collar of his shirt the way Dean had just done with his hair and making about as much of a difference. A small little smile is playing in the corners of his mouth, but it’s as substantial as dreams are, or as the headlights that are cutting through the room again, lost as they are in the wake of the faded fluorescent bathroom lights. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, words broken and shivering.

 

“Nah, Cas,” Dean says, grabbing his wrists that seem so small all of a sudden. “No. Don’t be. There’s nothing to be sorry for.” He holds him for a beat, imagining the pulse thrumming beneath his fingertips does not belong to him, before he steps back, steps away, the unlit motel room swallowing up his shuffle-step and the way his fingers clench around themselves as though missing something. “So, my turn?”

 

Castiel nods, distracted, brushing his limp hair already starting to curl out of his face and looking around the tiny bathroom. “Yes, of course. Just let me grab my –“

 

His toiletries bag has fallen, at some point, contents dashed across the floor. Shampoos, soaps, face wash – and gold. Gold and rubies and diamonds that throw the light into tiny, pastel rainbows. So that’s where he’d been hiding his mother’s jewelry, Dean muses, although he supposes it makes sense; if he’d wanted it kept a secret, Dean would never have looked in there.

 

He leans down to help gather it all up at the same time Castiel does, collision narrowly avoided. A small laugh falls from Castiel, but it’s flat. Flat and heavy and self-deprecating, as Castiel holds up a handful of pearls and straightens. Dean watches from the floor as Castiel looks at himself in the mirror, jewelry momentarily forgotten, the laugh still ringing in his ears. “You know,” he mutters, hard, eyes still such a sad shade of blue. “She probably won’t even miss them.”

 

***

 

Castiel wakes slowly, the way he always does, blinking blearily at the ugly wallpaper too close to his face for comfort, although he supposes it beats the sharp glare of sunlight further down the wall. Neither of those are what woke him, though, although the floral pattern could be contested for. No, behind him, Dean is talking, voice hushed to keep from waking him, although every so often it rises a decibel or two.

 

“No, I _know_ that Sammy,” Dean is saying, voice a low grumble. “I know, but I’m an adult now. I’m allowed to do things without ‘parental consent.’ Besides, we’ve barely been gone for a week. We’re fine.” There is a pause, a shuffle, the hushed huff of breath like a heavy-handed sigh. “I can’t come back now, Sam. Cas, he…he needs me.”

 

The bed creaks as Dean stands, his steps careful and dragging across the carpet. “Yeah, we’re in a motel…Just like old times, right?…I don’t know, somewhere in Missouri. We stop a lot, see all the tourist shows.” The steps still, and Dean’s words come out with a jagged edge to them like they were ripped from some fabric of him. “No, I don’t think we’ll be stopping in Kansas, Sam. No. I don’t want to hear it. I’ll call you later.” A tense pause. A muffled thump as the phone hits the bed. The springs creak again as Dean falls onto it.

 

When Castiel turns, Dean doesn’t notice. His elbows are on his knees and his face in his hands and he’s taking slow, controlled breaths that remind Castiel too much of last night, of his break down. It makes the words spill out of him on their own accord. “Kansas is where you’re from, isn’t it?”

 

It was the wrong thing to say, if the way Dean freezes is anything to go by. Dean doesn’t look up at him, but his steady rhythm hitches like he’s being strangled by the question Castiel already wishes he could take back. “Yeah. Lawrence.”

 

Suddenly all the random pit stops and detours make sense, all the early nights – sometimes in the middle of a back road, before they’d even reached any place to stop, at least, when they’d still had the funds. He’d thought Dean was just trying to take Castiel mind off of his parents, but apparently, it wasn’t _his_ past Dean was concerned with. He sits up, eyes trained on the jagged mountain range of Dean’s shoulder blades, tracing the hills and valleys of it. “I’m sorry,” he mutters into the space between them.

 

Dean looks up. His eyes are bright, but his lips are pursed and his hands clasped too tightly together. “Don’t, Cas,” he warns. For the span of a few heartbeats, they simply stare at each other, Castiel fisting the scratchy comforter, Dean still wound like a toy soldier. He stands, however, in a fluid movement, reaching for his already-packed bag with a sort of familiarity Castiel is somewhat surprised at. “You ready to go?”

 

“I suppose so. I just need to get dressed.”

 

Dean nods, not looking at him. “I’ll be in the car,” he says, words harsh in the strained silence that’s risen like fortress walls around them. “Make sure you, ya know, do your business, because I’d…I’d rather not stop.”

 

Castiel hums an acknowledgement but doesn’t move right away, watching the restlessness of Dean’s steps, the perpetual movement like running in slow motion, like he can’t get out of here fast enough. Castiel knows that feeling.

 

The car is already running when Castiel slips into it. It’s technically his shift to drive, but Dean’s jaw in clenched and jumping, so he doesn’t bring it up. They don’t talk, don’t even listen to the tapes Castiel already has memorized, so he dozes, on and off, head bouncing painfully, occasionally, on the metal frame of the car door. He’s not sure they even stop for lunch. He’s only sure that Dean speeds up in an almost terrifying crawl as soon as they see _Welcome to Kansas_.

 

Castiel doesn’t say anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, this story is totally not going exactly the way I planned. That would bother me, but this is nice, too. In fact, it may be better, because it's probably going to be a lot longer than I had anticipated.
> 
> You may have noticed that Chapter 2's title changed. When I started this fic, I really didn't plan out the timeline very well, so it's still being tweaked a little bit. Don't worry, though, nothing major has been changed, I just want to give the guys a few more years to play with.
> 
> Thanks for reading! The next chapter's under works already, so expect it soon. You're all lovely.


	5. Wrong Place, Wrong Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel is just slipping into sleep when the hum is broken by a choking sound coming from Dean’s side of the room. He feels his face draw into a frown as he’s pulled to consciousness – and then he realizes what it is. He sits up, the sheets whispering against the plastic-feeling comforter. “Dean?”
> 
> Dean’s shoulders stop moving, tense in the pale almost-dark of the room. His voice is still water-colored when he grumbles, “Go to sleep, Cas.”
> 
> Castiel yawns, stretches, turns to face his roommate. “Dean, what’s wrong?”
> 
> “Nothing.”
> 
> “Would you be crying if it was noth-“
> 
> “I don’t want to talk about it, Castiel.”
> 
>  
> 
> Or the one where no one knows what's going on.

Dean isn’t sure where they are.

He has just been driving, hours heavy on his eyes. He feels like they’ve been going in circles. They may have been going in circles, for all he knows. Castiel doesn’t say a word, suffers the tense silence the same way he did the worn-out classic rock tapes.

But here they are, stopping for the night, in a motel he feels he can recognize in his bones. “Where even are we?”

Castiel gives him a sideways look. “We’re…we’re in Lawrence, Dean. Didn’t you realize?”

Dean wants to deny this even as the blood drains from his face. His top lip feels numb, and his hands would be shaking if he wasn’t white-knuckling the steering wheel. He must not have been thinking. The muscle-memory of his childhood must have surfaced from where he’d shoved them down. He hadn’t been thinking, fiddling with the radio and thumbing through cassette tapes, not paying attention to the roads and now, they were here. In Lawrence. 

He tries to start the car again, but he can’t feel his palms. His arms feel weak. He can barely left him. It takes three struggling twists of the ignition before he hears that it’s stuttering, failing to turn over. “Dean,” Castiel is saying, his hand hovering over Dean’s shoulder, afraid to make contact. “Dean, Dean, Dean.”

Dean hits the steering wheel with the flat of his palm, a harsh, slapping sound. His jaw is clenched enough for the grinding to be visible to Castiel who’s still not touching him, who’s grown quiet now.

Dean decides he can’t consider anything now, and so he gets out, the door slamming, shaking the car. He keeps his sentences short. Grab your bags. One room. Two beds. One night. That’s fine. Let’s go.

Castiel doesn’t know what to make of it, of the frightening line of Dean’s shoulders, the way he practically falls into bed but doesn’t sleep. He can tell that he’s still awake because he doesn’t relax. His hands fist around the sheets so tightly they’re in rivets like ribcages across the mattress.

He decides not to say anything, going through his usual nighttime routine and then settling into bed himself, staring up at the ceiling. There’s little gold flecks in it, like stars, and he fancies constellations into existence as the minutes tick by and the room slowly darkens with the sunset. The air kicks on, a quiet hum.

Castiel is just slipping into sleep when the hum is broken by a choking sound coming from Dean’s side of the room. He feels his face draw into a frown as he’s pulled to consciousness – and then he realizes what it is. He sits up, the sheets whispering against the plastic-feeling comforter. “Dean?”

Dean’s shoulders stop moving, tense in the pale almost-dark of the room. His voice is still water-colored when he grumbles, “Go to sleep, Cas.”

Castiel yawns, stretches, turns to face his roommate. “Dean, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Would you be crying if it was noth-“

“I don’t want to talk about it, Castiel.”

Castiel nods to himself, scoots back against the headboard. He’s too awake now to go asleep, and the air is electric with the boys’ breathing. He wraps his fingers together in his lap, leans his head back against the cheap faux wood. “Isn’t it interesting how motel rooms are basically the same?”

Dean half twists, the sheet falling down enough to expose his bare torso as he looks at Castiel over his shoulder. “What?”

“Motel rooms,” Castiel says, gesturing vaguely at the shadowy figures around them. “They have the same basic components, but they’re all designed by different people. Someone picked out this wallpaper, these sheets.”

“So?”

“What would you choose to decorate a motel room?”

“This is the dumbest way to change the topic, Cas,” Dean says, but he sits up anyways. The sheets have pooled in his lap now, pulled down enough to expose a strong river of thigh. Castiel takes a deep breath, swallows.

“Yes, well. What would you choose?”

Dean smiles. His eyes are puffy and tired, but he can make out the lines of Castiel’s face, and it makes his chest tight in a totally different way, breathing deeply. Castiel has such a strong jawline, dusted with stubble, and even in the dim light he can see the stark blue of his eyes searching him out. His wide mouth is chapped, and there’s a wrinkle in his brow that makes a high pitch sound in Dean’s throat. He doesn’t think Castiel hears it. He prays Castiel didn’t hear it.

“I don’t know. Something about hunting, I guess.”

Castiel’s nose wrinkles. “Like, fish wallpaper? Deer antlers?” He shakes his head. “I don’t agree.”

“Well, what would you do?”

Castiel considers for a long moment, looking around as if imagining constructing his own dingy room with faded wallpaper and suspicious stains. “Clouds,” he says, finally. Then he slides under the covers and falls asleep, his chest rising and falling gently.

Dean almost sleeps, too.

***  
“Dean!”

Castiel’s voice is sharp but worn. Dean is instantly awake, his eyes wide and his heart racing. He doesn’t want to move, to face Castiel beneath his bedroom window. He isn’t supposed to be here. Not now. Not after all this time.

“Dean, I know you’re in there.”

Dean looks at his alarm clock without moving, as if Castiel could see him if he so much as breathed too visibly. It’s noon, although he should be able to tell by the clear light bleeding in with Castiel’s voice. Maybe if he goes back to sleep he’ll leave…

“I know you’re not asleep, Dean.”

Dean throws the sheets off of him and stands, suddenly angry. How dare he just show up here, after all of this time. What gives him the right to show up at his window like this, to yell at him, to drag him back into his stupid world. 

Dean’s jaw clenches as he threw the window open. His hands slam down on the window frame, a flash of heat shooting up his arms. He opens his mouth to yell – but he can’t. He can’t because Castiel is there, right there, on his lawn, a dirty trench coat stained with colors he could pick out even from here. His eyes are tired. So are Dean’s.

“Dean, I need to talk to you,” Castiel says. His voice is quiet now.

“Sucks for you,” Dean says. He closes the window and the blinds. He doesn’t look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhhhh I'm sorry it's been so loooonnnggg!!!!!!


	6. Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, Sam takes a step around him. "You need to leave," he says, voice low and serious. It hangs heavy in the air the way Dean's breath does, suddenly too loud in his ears. He still hasn't moved, his head hanging and half-looking over his shoulder. He sees Castiel's hand twitch, once. He imagines the rainbow that must be under his fingernails, if he still paints. He suddenly realizes he doesn't know for sure, and the thought startles him into motion.
> 
> Or, the one where Castiel is sort of a stalker.

Dean has never showed up on Sam's porch like this. Not for a few years, anyways. There was that stint with Cassie back in the day, but still. It feels like a first. Dean sighs, running a rough hand over his face and sucking in a breath. His palm tastes like motor oil, and he doesn't want to think about how he started fixing his baby last night for no reason, a compulsion that had him outside and bracing an onslaught of mosquitos. 

 

Dean knocks again, louder this time. A small face appears at his knee level, peering around the curtains on either side of the long skinny windows by the door. "Mom!" he calls. "It's Unc'a Dean!"

 

Jess opens the door. "Hello Dean," she says, calm as always. She's smiling, but her brow is furrowed. "Is everything okay?"

 

Dean shudders, a long shake of his spine that has his eyes closing, head dropping like he's too tired to look her in her concerned eyes. "Is Sammy here?" he breathes.

 

Jess turns to call to Sam, but he's already at the door, a hand on her waist, eyes focused intently on Dean. There's a baby on his hip. Dean sways uncertainly on his feet. His black-stained hand is over his mouth again, and his throat is pinching with the threat of tears. He has to keep swallowing it back. "Dean? What's wrong?"

 

Dean isn't sure where to begin. He looks over his shoulder expecting...what? An escape route? A way out?  _Cas?_ Dean turned back to look at his brother and Jess, and the baby in Sam's arms. She coos and smiles at Dean. It breaks something in him, cracks at the back of his throat and he bristles while the first tear shivers down his cheek, falls to the faded concrete porch.  _Damn that little baby, with that little baby face, and that stupid_ _any grin..._

 

Sam hands off the little monster to Jess and pulls Dean into a hug, Dean's face buried into his shoulder. Jess retreats into the house, closing the door to give them privacy. Dean looks up just in time to see her pulling the six-year-old John away from the window.

 

Without letting go, Sam says, "It's Cas."

 

Sniffling to some semblance of composure, Dean relaxes his arms, but doesn't pull away. "How did you know?" he asks.

 

Sam steps back, his arms on Dean's shoulders. He's still looking past him. "No, Dean." He inclines his head just the slightest bit. "It's  _Cas_."

 

Dean stiffens. There is lead pooling through his veins and he feels his spine spike in response. He tries to turn, but he is screwed into the faded grey concrete of the porch. Sam keeps looking at him and then back over his shoulder. Dean knows he's waiting for some sort of signal, what Dean wants him to do, whether he should leave - but Dean doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know what he wants.

 

Finally, Sam takes a step around him. "You need to leave," he says, voice low and serious. It hangs heavy in the air the way Dean's breath does, suddenly too loud in his ears. He still hasn't moved, his head hanging and half-looking over his shoulder. He sees Castiel's hand twitch, once. He imagines the rainbow that must be under his fingernails, if he still paints. He suddenly realizes he doesn't know for sure, and the thought startles him into motion.

 

"It's okay, Sam," he manages, a hand on his brother's shoulder.

 

Sam doesn't look at him, eyes trained on the one place Dean can't manage to look. "Are you sure?" he asks.

 

"Yes."

 

Sam turns to go back inside but pauses and says, soft now, "If you need me, just come in, okay? I'll leave the door unlocked."

 

Dean nods, before turning to face the man that keeps tearing him apart.

 

"Why are you here?" he asks. He wants his words to come out hard, with no room for excuses - but he just sounds tired. He sounds the way Castiel looks, shoulders mall and swallowed by his trench coat. He spares a look at his fingers. There's paint there. It makes something in him sigh with relief. His fists clench.

 

"I needed to see you." Castiel's voice is rougher than Dean remembers, silken gravel. His heart jumps at the sound, and he sucks in a breath in reprimand of himself.

 

"Why?"

 

Castiel smiles, incredulous, running a hand through his hair. He huffs out a ghost of a laugh, won't reach Dean's eyes. There's a long silence. Dean shuffles on his feet, wants to stand tall but can't. Castiel keeps opening his mouth to speak, but changing his mind, like the words are too big to get around his tired teeth.

 

Finally, he says, almost too soft for Dean to hear him, "My father is dying."

 

Dean takes a step towards him, hands already out and ready for an embrace, before he freezes. Castiel is looking at the hollow of his neck, and Dean knows he's imagining falling into his arms. He rolls his shoulders like he can take back the offer, and Castiel seems to deflate just a little more. "That doesn't explain why you want to see me," he says, finally. The words spit out of his tongue like acid to make up for how soft he keeps being. It's been too many years to collapse like this, so easily.

 

Castiel nods, slowly, chewing on Dean's words, trying his damnedest to not show how affected he is by the distance between them. "I just thought-"

 

"Thought what Cas...tiel?" The name feels unfamiliar on his tongue. "Thought you could come back here and it'd be just like it was before? That I'd let you cry on my shoulder? Like the past ten years never happened?"  
  


"No, I-"

 

"Look, I'm sorry your dad is dy-...sick, okay? I really am. But I don't want to talk to you. Not at my house, not at yours, not at my  _friggin' brother's_ do you understand?" He takes a full step towards him now, but he's angry, chest-puffed and hands shaking. "I don't want to see you."  
  


Castiel's eyes are wide, like Dean shoved him. Still, he nods. "I...I understand, Dean." Before he leaves, he whispers, "I'm sorry."

 

Dean wants to reject it, throw back a retort in his face, scream how much that isn't enough - but Castiel is gone, trench coat billowing out behind him like he's flying away.

 

Again.


End file.
